Has therapy / MH support 'cured' you or made you much better?

[Iamaperwinkle]

I'm starting to realise just how poor my MH is.

I did not have a good childhood -affluent yes, some fun times but my parents are total and utter bullies and I was VERY depressed.
Went to Uni. Then spiralled downwards. Unloved, unwanted etc -poor realtionship choices. Married and divorced after a volatile time with a total abusive arse. 3 or more abusive relationship -all same pattern -love bombing, then control and blaming me and then long spells after with harassment etc. Ex husband was under a restraining order for 4 years- isn't any more and I have to have some contact due to youngest.

I spent 10 years on anti-depressants.

Recently moved 'back home' only to find they (parents) were more abusive then ever. I'm NC but it's killing me slowly -I crave their love and affection.

I've had relate counselling in the past and well being referrals. Currently on a waiting list via the GP. Was referred to the MHT as was /am suicidal -they keep cancelling appointments. I feel totally detached -and really mentally unwell. I cry a lot. Daily and don't sleep.

Does therapy ever really heal?

I am not sure "heal" is the word I would use for my MH. I am an anxious person - I always will be.

I have had 2 serious episodes of depression and 2 serious episodes of anxiety. All of them I have required medication to get to a point where I could engage with therapy. All of them I got through and was able to get back to work. I found I did need medication to engage though.

Sorry to hear you are feeling lol this and hope you get the help that you need soon.

I've haven't felt suicidal since being a teenager so I can't try to say I know what you are going through but I have done therapy to deal with some very difficult childhood experiences. I say experiences, not memories, because I was still reliving them as an adult. It felt like a shadow was following me around and creeping it's way into different areas of life.

Therapy helped me realize I was allowing myself to be a vessel for these negative experiences and behaviors. It did not cure me or erase my memory. But it gave me the ability to recognize early that I was mixing my current circumstances with circumstances of the past. It gave me back some control of knowing when and how to intervene so things didn't spiral in that direction.

It wasn't like waving a magic wand overnight. In fact when I finished the therapy I felt drained and initially worse than ever. But over the following six months I practiced these recognition and reflection techniques and as I started to make different decisions and choose different reactions I felt my mental health gradually getting better.

However that's a very individual set of circumstances. Lockdown helped me because I had time away from the things and people who were triggering me in order to reflect. If you're in lockdown with your triggers with no escape I think it's much harder.

For me, giving myself a self space outside of therapy was an essential part of the therapy. I think therapy is much harder if you spend an hour a week on the "theory" but get no chance to change things in practice. And not everyone has that choice to just change their circumstances.

I’m sorry you’re struggling, OP. It sounds like a hard set of circumstances. Well done on reaching out to GP and on here, it’s not easy to do.
To answer your question, therapy/treatment has hugely helped me and improved my quality of life. I have DBT, which is often recommended for people who’ve suffered trauma and or who self harm. It’s been incredibly useful and transformative for me. One thing that my therapist says is “pain is inevitable but suffering can be reduced”. It’s not realistic to expect to go through life and not encounter emotional pain and difficult circumstances, but you can do your best to make these more bearable by learning how to respond differently to them.

The different aspects of DBT include: emotional regulation, which helps you to be aware of your emotions and manage the intensity and duration of your emotional responses; interpersonal effectiveness which helps you learn to communicate and interact more effectively with other people and also work out what the issues are in various situations; and mindfulness, which helps you become more aware of your emotions, thoughts and physical sensations and how these interact.

Our brains are malleable and learn to behave in certain ways, and some people’s amygdala or emotional smoke detector go off much faster than others, because of trauma or a combination of things. I’ve managed with help to change my responses, so that I no longer get such intense (disproportionate) reactions to situations. Often our distorted thoughts about situations cause us more pain than the situation itself.

That was long, hope some of it was useful to you OP. I first had DBT on NHS and then privately by the way. Good luck and best wishes

Oh and as a PS- I’m sorry you’re not sleeping. everything is so much harder to cope with on no sleep. I did find CBT fairly helpful to improve sleep, you can get books to help with sleep hygiene and improve habits around sleep, I was prescribed this one by GP.

www.google.co.uk/search?q=colin+a+espie&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari

Done right, it can really really help and be an invaluable support. Unfortunately the NHS and IAPT services are not fit for purpose.

I've been so much better since I've had private counselling. The problem with NHS and charities is that it is limited and there's no continuity of care. You get 20 hours or similar then have to go back on a waiting list or referred to NHS mental health team who are also limited and basically be pushed from pillar to post until you either recover on your own or (in my case) attempt suicide.

I gave up and went private in the end and glad I did. I've been with the same counsellor for over a year now and much more stable.

Yes, it helped me a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever be truly “healed”, as a pp poster said, I’m an anxious person and have experienced traumas that never really go away. But I’m happy and functional.